In the “what have I been doing lately” column:
First, I’ve been doing a lot of blogging at PastoralEpistles.com. I’ve done a lot of work translating and evaluating 2Ti 1.1-2.7 (at present) and will continue to work on it until I’ve worked through the whole letter. You may want to check out the posts.
Second, I’ve been doing a lot of reading in Peter Lampe’s From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (amazon.com). This is an awesome book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve learned more about the cultural milieu of early Christians, and more about Christians in early Rome, than I knew was possible. Just the few pages on Priscilla and Aquila are worth it.
Third, my friend Bobby Koduvalil at Hendrickson Academic set me up with a few books. First is J. Harold Greenlee’s The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition. This is a thin volume and from what I can tell is geared toward the guy who realizes that his NASB New Testament is inexplicably different from his KJV New Testament and wants to figure out why. It is most certainly not an academic introduction to textual criticism, it is an introduction geared toward the laity. As such, it will make most text-critics cringe. But that’s good. From what I’ve read so far, Greenlee hits his audience, and most of what he says is defensible in that context. Introduction, TOC and Sample Chapter are all online at Hendrickson’s web site, hit the book page and scroll to the bottom for links to those bad boys. Second is Steve Mason’s Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories, which is a compilation of several other articles Mason has written over the years, organized and somewhat edited into a new volume. Mason is a top-notch scholar and a nice guy to boot, and I’m really looking forward to reading this one — though it’ll be after Lampe (amazon.com) & Greenlee. I’ll blog about both of these books as I read more.
Fourth, in the past month I’ve installed the following Logos Bible Software and have already received benefit from most of it:
Fifth, since it has been lighter later, I’ve been able to take a few walks with our nearly-two-year-old daughter Ella after getting home from work. It’s still cold, but we brave it for a little while. She like to pick up a rock right when we start, and hold onto it the whole way. She also likes to keep me informed of when she sees birds, dogs, cats, dirt, trucks, cars, and busses. All in all, a hoot of a time.